Bismarck Rewane, the Managing Director of Financial Derivatives Company Limited, mentioned that while the prices of other food commodities have slightly decreased in the past few days, the market prices of beans have significantly risen.
Rewane made this statement on Channels Television’s Business Morning segment of the Sunrise Daily breakfast program on Thursday, as monitored by our correspondent.
He said: “We’ve seen onions come down sharply to N115,000, and rice has also come down to N110,000; it was as high as N120,000. The commodity that is surprising to everybody is beans; beans have gone out of storage and out of reach.’’
An investigation of major markets reveals that traders sold a painted rubber of beans for N13,000 and a derica of the commodity for N3,000, while a bag of beans goes for as high as N180,000.
Rewane attributed the hike in bean prices to recent flooding which ravaged food-producing states like Borno, Bauchi, and Sokoto, among others.
“Flooding has destroyed a lot of goods,” Rewane said, adding that the costs of moving agricultural produce from farms to the markets have also gone up due to a recent hike in petrol prices — from around N600 to about N1,000 per litre.
The economist predicted that food inflation would increase in the coming weeks but was optimistic that duty waivers on expected imported commodities would moderate prices.
“For now, despite everything, we think that inflation will still increase. Food inflation in particular will increase; headline inflation will increase to 34% but this is only temporary. When the imported commodities that we are going to enjoy the duty waivers come into the country, those prices will start to reduce,” Rewane said.
On October 1, 2024. President Bola Tinubu said his administration is focused on restoring peace to the troubled parts of the North so that farmers displaced by bandits and kidnapping can return to their farmlands and increase food production.
“We expect to see a leap in food production and a downward spiral in food costs. I promise you, we shall not falter on this,” Tinubu said on Tuesday during his 2024 Anniversary Broadcast on the occasion of Nigeria’s 64th Independence Day Anniversary.
Nigeria is battling one of its worst economic crises in recent times, with rising living and energy costs, sparked by the twin policies of the government’s removal of petrol subsidy and unification of the foreign exchange windows in May 2023.
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